Two people, too many secrets. Can love flourish?

Echoes of Regret. Book 2 of The Telomere Trilogy

Yay! My SFR eBook is now available from Desert Breeze Publishing!

BLURB
Fredrica Casales, relieved her participation as an undercover agent for the Imperial Guardians is over, strives to rebuild the trust she's lost with Captain Noah Bonney. But the terrorist plot was only the start of their journey. Now the Daring Star and Lady Victory crews must rescue the scientist who holds the Telomere cure before the very stability of the Galaxy unravels.

If that wasn't enough, Fredrica must work with her former Imperial contact, Jace McCree. As for Jace, he tries to keep a promise he made long ago, but as his sister grows sicker he's conflicted as to what decision he needs to make, and what to reveal. As they cross the Galaxy, battle rogue Watchers, and fight soul sucking space creatures, both Fredrica and Jace must come to terms with their regrets and decide whether to open their hearts. But fate has its own timeline, and not always at the convenient time.

EXCERPT
Jace's trepidation increased as Lady Victory detached from the port's docking bay with Jetta aboard. From the Imperial space station's sky-bridge he observed the Port Launch Unit maneuver the large, squid-like vessel out to open space. Three guiding shuttles worked in unison to push the huge vessel as if it were a marshmallow floating in water. Helpless and adrift at the moment, he was unsure what to do or how to act. From behind him his father, Scott McCree, growled.

"We shouldn't have let her leave, Jace."

Without looking back at him Jace said, "We shouldn't have kept it a secret so long, Father." He turned. "She should have been told when she came of age."

Scott reared on him and clamped his jaw. Jace cocked his chin, to face his father's wrath for what he knew to be the truth. Scott's anger flashed and then settled. He knew the truth himself. The blood rose and then drained out of his face.

"How was I supposed to tell her?" he muttered after moment, the pain clear in his expression.

Jace's memories flashed to the long ago day, barely out of childhood. "It doesn't matter the how. She should've known. Now who knows what will happen or how she'll take it when she finds out." He checked the time. "I have to board Daring Star. Will you be joining the journey?"

"No. It would seem too conspicuous to follow now. How would I explain it?" He touched Jace's upper arm and squeezed. "I'm sorry to have this fall on you. I pray it is not what we think. I will head out to their lands and try to find out what has provoked this change. I'll send you communications as soon as I discover anything."

"I'll protect her as best I can. I'll find a way to tell her when we land on Stratlin."

Purchase Links
Amazon, All Romance, Sony Reader, and soon to be on B&N and Kobo

Come Check Out the Winners!

I announce the winners of the Duty and Devotion giveaway contest. It was so much fun. I love throwing these things!

http://sci-fiadventures.blogspot.com/2011/08/winners-are.html

(psst...Pauline, Liana, and Colette...it's you!)

2 Months? Wow!

I can't believe it!

On Monday Duty and Devotion will have been out two months. "Happy R-day Nettie and Rinny!" (R-day instead of B-day, for release day.)

Duty and Devotion has received many compliments, a couple ratings, and a super great review. To celebrate, I'm going to hold a contest and will give away a couple copies of Duty and Devotion... in whatever format you wish.

What do you have to do?

Well, just contact me and let me know your favorite SF scene of all time, ever. (Ever, ever.) You can contact me either by leaving a comment here, leaving a comment on my blog (http://sci-fiadventures.blogspot.com/) or emailing me at ambernorris2000@yahoo.com.

I will select the winners on the official R-Day of course, which is Monday, August 15th.

Hangin' with TK Toppin

I'm super excited to be hanging out at TK's blog today. TK is grilling -- er -- interviewing me.

Learn my deep dark secrets...muahahahaha...okay, so they're not so deep but...well...oh, just go over if you have a chance!

http://thelancasterrule.blogspot.com/2011/06/my-guest-ar-norris.html

Space Travel: What are Your Ideas?

We're having a great discussion over at the sfr_writers Yahoo Group. For anyone interested in joining in. Author TK Toppin brought up a great world building question, asking how we all in the group approached space travel science.

TK is looking at some Space Jumping theories and author Ciara Gold brought up a great concept called Mapped Ribbons, which uses the blackhole theory. I hope she replies to this article explaining her idea to you all. I also shared my theory, which I call quantumportation. (Not a brand new concept, since technically the scientists working on quantum conductors uses the term for their long range goal of the theory.)

I realized I hadn't actually posted about my theory here or at my blog, so decided to now. Below is the summary I shared in the Yahoo Group. In case others were curious about quantum mechanics and their potential in SF writing. I'd loved to hear your thoughts and any way you would tweak the concept. Also, we'd love to have you all join the Yahoo Group, when you get a chance.

What's Quantumportation is to My SF World:
My theory uses a concept that revolves around quantum teleportation (how ever accurate or inaccurate the science is in my story). Though, I changed it to quantumportation because it uses quantum mechanics and not radio waves…any-who…Simplified, it is quantum "mimicking"/"transferring" of trapped/set state of protons and ions to another set of nano-prepared "blank" protons and ions through a large system/processor called a Leap Jump.

The Leap Jump is a large "quantum conductor" built in space that holds up to the standard, regulation size space vessel. Activated, the conductors connect with the receiving Leap Jump using an advance infrared light communication infrastructure. The data recorded from the initiated protons and ions are transferred through this system across the network of long range communication transceivers and relayed to the receiving Leap Jump where the waiting blank protons and ions rematerialize. The initiating protons and ions are "blanked out" through the nanotechnology system and stored for future receiving vessels.

Fixing Vessels and Communications:
For short distances, the vessels do travel through a hydronic-proton hybrid drive system that gets them up to a standard kilometer per mile speed system but in the multiplication of a million. I call them space kilometers. If the vessel breaks down, I use the same theory as quantumportation but on a smaller scale and through stored information in Encrypted Ionic Networks. For communications and short distance "relays", I have different sizes of these quantum conductors that transfer anything from messages to data to supplies. These smaller ones have restrictions based on their communication distance capabilities.

If they are out of the communication infrastructure range, than there are stored data and a stored amount of blank protons and ions . The data will relay a message to the protons and ions to recreate the end result, whether it be food, parts, or medical supplies. This is only as an emergency, as the blank canisters are in limited supply and highly regulated with protocols and ethical/legal codes of conduct for what's allowed to be recreated "from scratch".

Here are a couple of my source research articles to give you more details and maybe start your research if you're interested in this theory. The quantumportation has already been successfully performed on a smaller scale with with data/information transfer in Japan.

http://www.space.com/1287-teleportation-express-lane-space-travel.html

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/05/quantum-teleportation-achieved-over-ten-miles-of-free-space.ars

http://www.technologyreview.com/communications/24522/?a=f

Chrystalla Thoma: Satyrs, Silenes and Other Forces of Nature

Today I am SUPER excited to have Chrystalla Thoma on my blog, Adventures of a Sci-Fi Writer, to talk about Greek mythology. Here's a snippet, for the whole post stop by.

Hi dear Amber! Thank you for hosting me today.

Greeks have a love-and-hate relation with their history and mythology. Lucky for me, I am a lover of such things, so I had a happy time at school learning about ancient history and Homer.

Therefore it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I like writing about Greek myths and legends. My upcoming novella, to be released by MuseItUp Publishing next month, is called Dioscuri. It is a retelling of the ancient myth of the twin brothers Kastor and Polydeukes, Zeus’ sons with Leda, one of whom is mortal and the other immortal. The story is set in modern-day Athens where the ancient gods have woken again, and there is war. The two brothers fight against the monsters. When the mortal brother, Kastor, dies in battle, his immortal sibling Polydeukes takes things in his own hands and makes a dark deal with the Underworld. A deal Zeus will sooner or later discover and all hell will break loose.

In this war against the monsters crawling out of the underground passages and the construction sites, and the complicated games of the higher gods of Olympus, certain lesser immortals take the mortals’ side: nature sprites, the satyrs, silenes, nymphs and the griffins, aid Kastor and Polydeukes not only in hand to hand battle, but also in figuring out the mystery of Kastor’s return to life and the deal his brother made with Hades.

In my post for Six Sentence Sunday (a project where each Sunday authors post on their blogs six sentence from a published or unpublished story they wrote), I have an excerpt with the Satyr of the Temple. He is an authoritative figure in the story, and demands to know of Kastor what the heck is going on:

“Listen, Satyr, I appreciate the time you’re taking for me, but I’ve got to meet
someone, I—”

“Because it cannot be someone playing games with the Underworld, can it?” The Satyr leaned closer, his long, flat face driving fear like a dagger into Kast, nailing him to his seat, driving his breath out. “That would cause the wrath of the higher immortals; call them down to punish us all. One doesn’t toy with the boundaries between the dead and the living.”

Kast drew back, the hairs on the back of his neck rising.

Much has been said about the Greek gods’ anthropomorphism, which simply means that their gods look and behave just like us mere mortals. Oh they do have powers, but their human appearance and petty quarrels don’t differ much from ours. This is taken to be an advance on, say, the grotesque gods of other ancient cultures like the Babylonian and the Egyptian, composites of men and animals. The Greek gods left behind their animalistic side.

But did they, really?

Among ancient Greek findings, we encounter statuettes of bird-headed goddesses and horse-bodied men (perhaps centaurs, i.e. impressions of the first appearance of men riding horses in Greece). But then what happened?...

Stop by for the rest of the post and to learn more about Chrystalla, click here.

Guest Blogging About Romantic Settings Off World

I'm over at Jillian Chantel's today talking about romantic off world settings. Stop by and let me know what you think.

Connect from my blog http://sci-fiadventures.blogspot.com/2011/02/guest-blogging.html or go directly to her site here, http://jillianchantal.wordpress.com/2011/02/01/the-fantastic-other-worldly-amber-norris/

Talkin' eReaders

Hi Brigader Buddies!

Don't mind me, I'm just in a conversational mood right not. I'm doing my first guest gig over at author Stephanie Burkhart's blog, Romance Under the Moonlight, and talking Kindle. (Stop by if you have a chance.) While putting the article together, it got me wondering about the full impact of the eReader on not only reading in general but on our genre in particular.

It seems to me that both science fiction and romance (with emphasis of course on the merged child SFR) were born for the ereader. We have the wonder and curiosity of change from the science fiction parent and the passion and emotional connect of the romance parent. Then, of course, both have given SFR the bones of risk and grit to evolve in changing times.

I know the impact it has had on me. Besides given me the ability for instant reading fixes, one of the main things that I've benefit from has been the "dawn of the independent publishers". These folks have thrived in this new eReader submodel of the industry and allowed them to focus on books that the larger publishers would risk on.

What do you all think? What benefits have the eReader explosion had for you both as a reader and an author that traditional print has not?

Guest Blogging Opportunity

Hello fellow Brigaders!

I'm looking for some groovy guest bloggers to come by and take over my blog for a day. I'd love to have a variety of topics including:

Book or Series Reviews
Author Interviews
Character Interviews
Themed articles
Showcases
Excerpts
....or well, whatever

If you're interested, please email me at ambernorris2000@yahoo.com

Thank you!

Science Update

Happy Tuesday Brigaders!

All us SF Brigaders know the science is as important as the romance in SFR. In my opinion, where we SFR writers excel at bringing out the human and social elements of the story we also excel at infusing the small details of future technology without nauseating the reader with thesis-like paragraphs and chapters. We're good at the details and the subtle world building of the future. So, today I've got pretty cool stuff on some great Science Updates that have great opportunities in SFR.

First up, bandages that change color to let you know your wound is becoming infected. How cool is this futuristic medical treatment? Expand this and you'll have patches, gauze, and medical tape that indicates...whatever. Maybe even blood pressure, heart rate, healing progress...


Next, the sad news that chocolate is going the way of the dinosaurs. Don't fret, it's not anytime soon but still, it gives pause for thought. When you're writing, what of today's commodities will not be around, in proximity, or evolved into something else? To tell the truth, I haven't really explored this concept in many of my works but it has intrigued by the ideas and will definitely infuse some of this in my next works. Thinking beyond just the fact that a yummy treat will be going away, we need to think of the full implications. Cocoa beans are a commodity ...

Okay, I'm starting to get too excited so I better hurry and get to the most exciting find. What we Sci-Fi geeks have been waiting for...Light bending camouflage. 'Nuff said. Check it out. I'm struck speechless and typeless yet again at this news. There's been work on military flight camouflage but this new metamaterial research is going to open up doors for all kinds of smaller scale ideas and more field battle uses. I imagine a futuristic Patton play. Not just creating a false military site, but hiding our military posts, our men in the field, our ground vehicles, and our small reconnaissance flyers...

For the full article, please feel free to stop by Adventures of a Sci-Fi Writer.